Big Apple traffic taming
cagers to protect bikers
with new avenue design
with new avenue design
Dave Hogarty reports in The Gothamist, 22 September 2007:
A proposal for 9th Ave. in Manhattan will utilize cars themselves to protect cyclists from vehicular traffic. The seven-block stretch of road in Chelsea will run from 23rd St. to 16th St. and designers are calling it the street of the future. It will feature a ten foot-wide bike lane adjacent to the sidewalk that will be separated from traffic by a parking lane. To prevent motorists from using the wide-open curbside lane for parking, it will be buffered by physical barriers like planters.
The remade 9th Ave. will also include a feature known as a pedestrian refuge, which juts laterally across the road and reduces the length of the pedestrian crossing from 70 to 45 feet. The design has been used in Europe for some time but it will be a first for New York City. Work on the road rehab is expected to be complete next month. Streetsblog has more details on the plan with enhanced graphics illustrating the concept.
Labels: new urbanism, traffic taming, velotariat
posted by Da' Square Wheelman, at 3:00 PM
2 Comments:
We have this kind of configuration where the bike lane is to the outside of the parking in San Francisco, but NOBODY knows how to deal with it. Everybody parks in the bike lane and cyclists using the parking "lane" as a bike lane.
A TEN FOOT bike lane?! I'm in heaven - that's just fantastic.
The only worry I'd have is from traffic turning left - would the cyclists effectively have to give way to cars at EVERY junction? It doesn't matter if they were legally required to or not - being on the other side of the parked cars and the refuge, they just wouldn't be seen [as legitimate traffic on the road], and are likely to end up having to approach every junction with extreme caution.
But if that problem can be resolved, this scheme is just wonderful.
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